WHATS UP SPECIAL ED?!?!?!?!?!
A couple years ago Yahoo! deemed week 10 to be "RIVALRY WEEK" for this here 10-team-league. The designation was probably confusing for DYM Readers since we have traditionally declared "RIVALRY WEEK" to be whatever week(s) Team DYM is matched up with The Commish (or more recently, Andy). But this year we have chosen to embrace the Yahoo! format because it just so happens that this week features maybe the most contentious matchup of 2021 Special Ed season -
THE SPECIAL ED SUPERBOWL REMATCH REMATCH!!!!!!!!!!
PLUS, all the other Special Ed Matchups this week are FIRE too:
The Commish vs His Cousin Andy
Two great SESB Champs facing off in 🗑 vs Sharon Ertz
Three-time SESB Champ Pauls Awesome Team fight to keep their season alive vs Tobin & The Rippers
A potential BARNBURNER between the Pickle Ricks!! and No and Then! with 250 total projected points!!!
Spoiler Alert: We're picking EVERY team that lost week 1 to get a REVENGE WIN this week. LETS GOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!
WHO'S HOT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
This league was listless last week. From top-to-bottom, it was a week to forget. Only two teams are above room-temp this week and neither of them scored over 110 in week 9.
In each of the first 8 weeks of 2021 at least 2 teams in this league have scored over 130, this week the highest score in the league was 108. The league average score in week 9 was 96.59 - the first week with a league average under 100. But there may be a disturbing trend at work here. The Special Ed League average score has gone down every week since week 5. In week 5 our average score was 135, week 6 - 120, week 7 - 114, week 8 - 104. Pretty much every week since DYM latched on to our new "prioritize high-ADOT receivers" strategy offenses all over the NFL have collapsed. Within just the last week: The Jags shut down the Bills, The Dolphins shut down Baltimore, The Broncos "figured out" The Cowboys, and The Henry-less Titans took down the Rams in LA in primetime. And we can't blame it all on Quetzacoatl Season, cause even the mighty KC Chiefs have scored more than 2 TDs only once in the past month.
Earlier today on SiriusXM Fantasy Football Morning, fantasy analyst Wes Huber posited that many NFL defenses have become much less predictable over the past month - switching between man and zone coverages week-to-week - especially when facing elite passing offenses. The result has been a drastic decline in passing efficiency and volume league-wide, and "outside receivers" have borne the brunt of the impact of these recent defensive adjustments.
Our only hope now is that the offensive masterminds that changed the NFL landscape over the last half-decade can reinvent their teams again on-the-fly this season. Call us crazy but we still think they've got a chance.
If nothing else, the more we think about it, we're kinda glad Tarot Player of the Week is a road underdog defense.
MISS CLEOS PLAYER OF THE WEEK!!!!!!!!!!
49ERS DEFENSE!!!!!!!!!!
Miss Cleo's Prop Bet Record: 4-5
FOOD BEEF VI: BURGERS
This Week: WAVERLY DINER
Waverly was scheduled to be the second stop on our tour back in week 5 but they were closed when we went down there, so they got bumped back to week 10. We went down there again today in the early afternoon and they closed early
AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!
We've been to Waverly a few times for a last minute breakfast sandwich on the way to the train and we've never seen more than 2 other people in there at any given time. We guess they probably close early a lot when nobody comes through for lunch.
One might wonder how a joint like this can stay in operation in a high-rent-town like Madison. But one thing we know about New Jersey is you ought to never wonder that kinda thing out loud, it's probably none of your business.
BURGER SCORE: 0 (DNP)
SPECIAL ED RIVALRY WEEK MATCHUPS!!!!!!!!!!
This is the third time PHP has matched up with DYM in the week 10 "Rivalry" slate. DYM has dominated PHP over the last decade, winning 10 of 13 matchups. Although the freshest one in our memory is PHP's 145-114 drubbing of Team DYM back in week one of this season. Since then PHP have continued to roll through the league - they're 7-2 and the highest scoring team in Special Ed.
But there could be trouble afoot for PHP: They also have faced the easiest schedule in the league with their opponents scoring a measly 102 points per game. This could be PHP's toughest test so far. They're dealing with more byes and injuries than they have all year. Cooks and Edmonds are on bye but Edmonds is probably going on IR anyway, Derrick Henry is already on IR, and Chris Godwin is now a "gametime decision" after missing the whole week of practice. PHP only has one player available on the bench - and it's one of our all-time least favorite players, Adam Thielen.
Meanwhile, Team DYM has a full roster of healthy players available and they've made an incredible 8 roster moves in the last 5 days. DYM wants this win BAD, and we're pullin out all the stops. We're big underdogs so we're gonna have to be both lucky AND good, but we think we're set up pretty nicely. We snagged Singletary as soon as Moss went down last Sunday, if Moss is still in protocol this weekend we'll have 3 RBs with green-light matchups. Our fourth RB is just happy to be here after missing week 9 with a bum foot, but that's cool. We're going heavy on Bills vs NYJ and, just to be safe, we dropped all our Dolphins and Patriots. We got this.
MARSHAWN LUNCH WINS!!!!!!!!!!
About 24 hours ago we woulda had a real hard time picking PAT against the first place Rippers. Paul's gonna be without Chubb and most likely Rodgers again, so they could be doing some last minute dumpster shopping this weekend. But we're still fairly confident that whoever they start won't have a hard time outscoring Lamar and Devonta (19.9 combined).
The Dolphins did that defense switcheroo thing last night and Lamar had no fuckin clue what was goin on. Shout out to the SawJaw League group text for getting out in front of that one.
The Rippers have a bench full of injurinos right now, but the scary thing about that game (and Bills/Jags, and like every Chiefs game) is that even healthy players aren't safe. Even top-10 QBs are kinda "boom-or-bust" nowadays, and to be honest we're a little worried. We're not gonna get a reliable sample size of ANYTHING this year, so the second half of the season could get REAL weird. And it's likely that the most astute among us fantasy gamers will likely be the most befuddled.
PAULS AWESOME TEAM WINS!!!!!!!!!!
This is THE WEEK for The Commish, we're TELLIN YOU!!!!!!!!!!
After 5 weeks of automatic L's he's finally getting Russ back. Montgomery is finally healthy too, although he's on bye. But that's OK cause Alvin Kamara just got ruled OUT for tomorrow and The Commish has Mark Ingram all juiced up and ready to go. That's a HUGE advantage for The DBs.
After a 5-2 start, BIOH have lost two straight coming into Rivalry Week. Now they limp into this pivotal matchup without their RB1. Injuries and byes have forced two tight ends into the BIOH starting lineup and their starting WRs combined for 10 fantasy points last week. They're only the 5th coldest team in the league on paper this week, but it looks a mid-November cold-snap is on the way.
DELTA BLUES WINS!!!!!!!!!!
Pickle Ricks!! only managed 87 points in week 1 which was easily their lowest scoring week of the year. Since then they've scored a scorching-hot 119 per game and 124 per game over the last 3 - making them one of only two certifiably HOT teams coming into week 10. The Rippers are already kinda fucked, so PR will likely be the ONLY hot team in our league next week.
PR has 4 green-light matchups, plus two Colts vs the Jaguars and a rejuvinated C-Mac. Mike Evans could have an absolute feast against Washington with Gronk, Godwin, and Mr Big Chest all out this week.
PICKLE RICKS WINS!!!!!!!!!!
It's kinda hard to believe now but both of these teams are Special Ed Champions. Doug won TWICE!!!
Last week we praised Doug for benching Mahomes. In theory that was the right move seeing as how Mahomes only scored 9 points. But somehow Doug came up with an EVEN WORSE week 9 QB. Just incredible. To add injury to insult, the 🗑 team came up 7 points short against Pickle Ricks, so Mahomes actually woulda won that game for them.
Sharon Ertz lost an even closer game last week. They lost to the lowly PAT by less than 5. That's a tough loss especially cause there were soooo many ways it coulda gone differently. Sharon only got 6 from their starting QB, Moss got concussed in the first half, AND Baltimore defense went negative. Woof.
We have bad teams in a couple other leagues this year so we know -- 3-6 feels a lot better right now than 2-7. But these two have taken a veritable menagerie of gut-punches this season, we can only hope they're both doing better in their other leagues.
